I have always loved rankings of world beaches but when no Philippine beach appears on the lists, I would surely get disheartened. How could someone produce the list of the top 10 beaches in the world when in fact they have not seen all! They could have just came up with the title, “The best beaches we have seen so far!” Sometimes, you cannot fathom why a beach in filthy Kho Phangan in Thailand is ranked higher than the immaculate beach in Playa del Carmen in Mexico. CNN produced a list of the world’s 50 best beaches and it created overwhelming disapproval when beaches in the Greek Islands, in Bermuda and in the Philippines’ Palawan were missed out. Also, Yahoo Travel featured an article ranking the Philippines’ best beaches and I thought it was not so properly done, placing El Nido at the top without even singling out any of…

Whether it’s because you want to experience more, find it more convenient, or want to know yourself better through your own Eat, Pray, Love journey, we travel alone for many reasons. As for myself, it’s usually because I either want to immerse myself in a place without the comfort of having a friend to fall back on, or I simply want to get away and be alone for a while. This also means that the ideal places for solo travel will have to either:

Have really friendly people so you can make friends easily and get to know a place through local knowledge;

Be away from crowds but yet safe enough for you to relax without worrying too much.

Here’s my attempt at curating 10 awesome places for solo travel with lots of help from my big brother Google. The list is based largely on where I thought was cool,